Thank you to TheIndianBookClub.com for publishing this blog post It all began when the coronavirus pandemic hit the UK in 2020. I was...

From the moment that I began to write my first novel, every visit to a bookshop was an opportunity for my imagination to picture my book in the window or on the shelves. I would walk past the big window displays and picture my own book there, or nestled in amongst the bestsellers on the wall just inside the door. Over the months, I began to notice that the same books seemed to dominate those key positions in the major booksellers, or at least the same authors. Stephen King, J

Writing a novel for me requires routine. Publishing cycles are slow, with around a year between books, it can be easy to drift for days without actually producing any meaningful work. Apart from the odd e-mail from my editor and occasional catch up with my eternally patient agent, there is no real accountability for spending the whole month watching the cricket World Cup. So, my answer to productivity, is to have a routine. To try and have some set times to be sat in front of

For a wordsmith, language is important. Words maybe the most important tool that we have and so it surprises me that so many authors describe the unique and painful experience of querying potential agents as being, “in the trenches.” Since World War One, the words most associated with trench warfare are futile and conflict. Something to be endured over a long period of time with a capable adversary determined to stop our progress. A task in which we do the same thing over an